Clock for class project gets Muslim boy arrested

Evidently, the name Ahmed Mohamed was warring enough to warrant police detention even though he is a high-school teenager who so obviously geeky.  In what appears to be a case of racist overreach that has appalled most people who heard the news, a 14-year Muslim boy was arrested by the Texas police after he brought a home-made digital clock to Dallas-area school as part of an engineering project.

The boy, who loves gadgetry, earned the appreciation of his science instructor, but another instructor who saw the clock and heard it beep during a demo alerted authorities, fearing it might be a bomb.

The incident could have ended there as a joke caused by overreaction, but the police arrested the boy, handcuffed him, fingerprinted him, and put him in a juvenile center. Officers said the clock and wires inside his Vaultz pencil case looked like a hoax bomb to them.

The resulting photo of a young nerdy boy in oversized glasses with his hands cuffed behind his back joins the gallery of American soldiers peeing on prisoners and setting snarling dogs on detainees in the US hall of shame.

The Council of American-Islamic Relations thinks it may be an example of Islamophobia. “I think this wo uldn’t even be a question if his name wasn’t Ahmed Mohamed,” Alia Salem, executive director of CAIR’s North Texas chapter, told the local media. “He is an excited kid who is very bright and wants to share it with his teachers.”

The boy was later released to his parents, although the school suspended him for three days. School authorities defended their action saying they always ask students and staff “to immediately report if they observe any suspicious items andor suspicious behaviour.”